Virtual Hosts in Apache can be a pain. Here's the one I use when I'm setting up a quick development environment.
First, edit the vhost file. On Ubuntu (using Apache2) you'll find this in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
Text Snippet:
sudo su
nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
I generally replace all the content of this file with:
Text Snippet:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@myserver
DocumentRoot /var/www/public
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory "/var/www/public">
Order Deny,Allow
Allow from all
AllowOverride None
SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV development
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
After this, restart Apache2 by issuing:
Text Snippet:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
If Apache fails to restart, there are a couple things to check, first make sure that the web root exists. In my example I've used '/var/www/public'
If that directory exists, then also make sure that the rewrite mod is enabled. You can do this by issuing:
Text Snippet:
a2enmod rewrite
Finally, restart Apache, again we issue:
Text Snippet:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Hopefully this will work for you without a hitch.